


when truth comes

by threadoflife



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Fluff and Angst, Healing, John is so emotionally repressed oh my god, John learns to use words, Love Confessions, M/M, Sherlock helps him speak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 14:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11969595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threadoflife/pseuds/threadoflife
Summary: One night John decides he can't stand it anymore: the constant "what if" hovering over them. So he does the possibly bravest thing he's ever done---he decides to confess to Sherlock what he feels for him.He finds it difficult, though, this stuff.Sherlock helps him to articulate the words he's trying hard to keep behind bitten lips.





	when truth comes

**Author's Note:**

> while overwhelmed by johnlock feels and a gif showing how john literally bites his lips/chews on them to bite back his emotions, this happened
> 
> http://wssh-watson.tumblr.com/post/164709718797/i-am-much-too-full-of-johnlock-feels-today-someone
> 
> angst and love confessions are my jam
> 
> repressed john letting go is my jam

When John finally decides he can’t stand living with the ever-present “what if” any longer and resolves to confess just how deeply he feels for Sherlock—that he’s in love with him, has been in love with him for ages, really, just wasn’t brave enough to see it for himself and definitely not brave enough to tell Sherlock—then, liquid courage is his support.

There he stands, in the centre of the living room, clutching the glass of alcohol to his chest with a white-knuckled grip, staring at Sherlock’s back. Sherlock, violin held to his chest, is gazing out of the window as he so often does.

John is so sure he’s going to do it, this time, dammit, he has to—he can’t live like this any longer, and so he opens his mouth—and his breath catches in his throat. He stands there silently fighting for breath because it won’t come, and so he swallows, which is no use because he still can’t breathe, and he feels the panic sit monstrously in his chest and gut and throat, and his eyes get wet before he can help it

And he can’t do anything but stand there, dumbly, stupidly, eyes now locked on the floor and blinking rapidly so maybe he’ll lose those fucking tears without Sherlock noticing.

But then, Jesus fuck, a whimper escapes him, a high hurt little noise like all that time ago before Sherlock had cradled him to his chest—that one, miraculous time—and he’s so mortified he wants to punch himself, but there’s nothing he can do: he’s rooted to the spot, blinking fast and staring down at his feet, clutching his glass as if it could save him, and before it can happen another time he begins to chew his lips viciously, and the pain doesn’t even register—he just keeps chewing and chewing and chewing, pushing that soft, wet flesh back and forth between his teeth until the sweet, metallic taste of blood reaches him and he still can’t stop, and—

His heart stops beating; an interrupted pulse, barely a second; for there before his feet, shockingly and suddenly, are Sherlock’s, beautiful long toes bare and curling into the wood. He hadn’t noticed Sherlock coming closer. It doesn’t change a thing, only exacerbates the panic. His breathing comes back, sudden and fast and shallow, through his nostrils. This is it, he thinks. This is it.

Stupidly, another noise escapes him, past the teeth, past the blood, past his swollen flesh. He can’t help it; it just rushes out, sits there between them like a physical entity, testament to John Watson’s cowardice: testament to his fragile, volatile heart, which isn’t his at all but in name, only in name. Testament to his brimming heart, which is so brave, so brave before bullets or knives or chaos, but which shrivels and hides behind the ribs guarding it before sentiment.

Not so Sherlock, though. Not so Sherlock. Sherlock has always been much braver than John in anything, but especially this.

There is a quiet “thunk” as Sherlock, taking John’s glass from his hand, sets it down on the table behind him. There are endless, aching seconds, in which John, lower lip gripped hard under his front teeth, stares at and watches those bare, vulnerable feet coming closer: one step, then another one, a tiny one, really, because there isn’t that much space left between them anymore, and there is a huge rush of air John inhales impulsively, which is stuck in his throat, as those toes come to rest over his—bare toes over his socked ones, a soft but insistent pressure, an innocent, chaste touch that rams a spike of heated shock and tenderness right through John’s chest.

He swallows wetly. It’s loud between them. His arms hang at his sides, fingers curling into fists, useless, voiceless fists that only ever know how to speak with violence but which never communicated a thing, in the end.

Sherlock, for all he lacks the vocabulary in these…. areas…., is an impressively fast learner, and so bold, so damn bold. His fingers are shaking—minute tremors John perceives because he watches them, raptly, terrified, come up to his face—they are shaking so finely as their tips just graze so over John’s chin; as the pad of the thumb lingers over the cleft there a searing, tiny point of contact that arrests John’s heart.

John’s eyes close, involuntarily. He feels: allows himself to feel, only feel. Sherlock’s fingers are on his face, touching him, touching him softly and almost reverently, which is stupid and can’t be but still is true.

Those fingers trace the contours of his face, light as feathers. Over the curves of his eyebrows, feeling out the shape and solidity of his cheeks, brushing over the bridge of his nose and down. A thumb dips into his cupid’s bow, rests there, bestowed the same wonder as the cleft of his chin. John stands there, fixed and wild and unable to move a muscle except to keep chewing his lips, and lets it happen.

Warm, shallow breath on his face, then—and cool over his cheeks, which— _fuck_ —which are wet despite himself, so wet, so fucking wet. The left corner of his mouth is wet, too, and Sherlock breathes against his face for a little while, shallowly, too quickly, a bit panicked himself maybe, and John can’t fault him for that at all, could never, he can’t even open his eyes to stare at the wonder before him when Sherlock is touching him, touching him and breathing so closely and—and rubbing the large pad of his thumb over his lips, then, gently but firmly still, nudging in between—so bold, so brave, oh Christ—nudging in between to free his lips from his teeth, and “Tell me,” he says, whispers, rasps, voice so close and low shaking like his hands are shaking upon John’s face, inside John’s mouth, shaking so much John fears he’ll shake apart before him into tiny pieces if John doesn’t—doesn’t—“tell me, please,” Sherlock says, wrecked, wet, and he keeps pushing, and he keeps pushing with his thumb, and John nicks him, his incisor nicks that sweet and wondrous skin, he can’t help it, he’s terrified and frozen with the severity of his pathological repression, he can’t help it, he can’t—

“Let me in,” Sherlock says, keeps pushing, and both their blood mingles on John’s tongue, but he keeps pushing anyway, keeps pushing while his other hand cradles the back of John’s head. “Let me in, John, please—tell me—”

All of a sudden his thumb pops inside, past John’s teeth, touches the soft edge of his wet, rough tongue, and just settles there. Just settles. Waits. Waits, for John, with John’s teeth clamped painfully around skin he swore he’d never hurt again.

And it’s all it takes then, a sudden, dangerous thought: _I can’t believe he’s really touching me like this_ —that’s all it takes for John’s eyes to fly open wide and disbelieving, because Sherlock only ever needed to say danger for John to ask where do you want me.

This is the most dangerous thing he’s ever done, John thinks, ridiculously, wildly, alive—as his teeth soften around Sherlock’s thumb and let go, let go, and he stares hard and wet at Sherlock’s bright eyes and murmurs, “I’m in love with you,” right into the space between them, where it can never be unsaid or forgotten again. Sherlock feels the words shape themselves against his thumb, feels John’s tongue pushing up to shape the words, and it comes out garbled as it is with Sherlock’s finger in his mouth, garbled and broken and true, so true.

And for once, John’s fingers and his mouth both communicate the same: I love you, as his fingers wrinkle Sherlock’s shirt, holding on fast, bringing Sherlock closer. I’m in love with you and have always been, his mouth shapes against Sherlock’s neck, where he feels Sherlock’s erratic pulse.

No longer violence for his hands: no longer silence for his mouth. Sherlock unlocks him as he always has, because Sherlock has always known—he has always known John’s fists and mouth communicated in synchronicity; he’s always known the shape of silence in John’s mouth, has always known the motivation behind the violence in his fists.

But silence is broken, and violence need no longer be. Truth comes from mouth and hands both as they touch Sherlock in love, in warmth, in affection, finally, finally, at last. Sherlock has always known they wanted to.

 


End file.
